In Dreams
by planet p
Summary: AU; what if you could change the past in your dreams?
1. Chapter 1

**In D****reams** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**Author's Notes** The idea for this came from the film _In Dreams_, and when I first had this idea, I had not seen _The Butterfly Effect_, but when I did, I realised that the idea for this was a lot like the idea for that film. AU.

* * *

_What if you could change the past in your dreams?_

* * *

_1969_

Miss Parker climbed out of the car, legs shaking, and shut the car door after her, and, a moment later, heard her mother, from the other side of the car, slam her own door shut.

She'd never expected her mother, when she'd told her three weeks ago that the son she'd believed to be dead since birth – her own twin – was still alive, to believe her. She'd never expected her mother to believe her, but she had.

At first, Catherine had been confused how she'd even known that she'd been born a twin, let alone that her twin had been a boy, but her confusion had quickly changed to excitement when Miss Parker had told her that her twin was not only alive, but that she knew where he lived.

When her mother had arranged for the two of them to travel to her twin brother's town to meet him, she'd been both excited and afraid.

What she did not tell her mother was that, in years to come, she would meet her twin brother for the first time since their birth, except that she wouldn't know then that he was her brother, let alone her twin, which seemed strange to her, because she knew now that he was her brother, though she could not say where the knowledge had come from, just that it was telling her to be wary, to be cautious of her brother, who would turn out to be a very dangerous person when they met in the future.

Or met again.

Miss Parker's head hurt – her mother was going to die; in two years, Raines would shoot her mother and abduct her infant half brother, who would be named Ethan; shouldn't she have been warning her mother, she wondered – and her legs shook.

She did not want to meet her brother, she did not even want to be in this state, in Nebraska, let alone standing in front of her brother's school.

She prayed with all of her might that she had been wrong, that her twin brother really was dead.

Except her mother was counting on her to point out which child her brother was.

Catherine took her hand and they left the car and approached the school gate as the bell for the end of school rang, and soon students started to stream out of the school building. And then Miss Parker saw him, and she could not deny that this boy – Bobby, that was his name – was her brother, and she wanted to cry, but she just looked at her mother and told her, "That one."

Catherine waited until Bobby had left the schoolyard and had almost reached the parking space beside the pavement where she had parked the rented car, before she took Miss Parker's hand and the pair strode swiftly toward Bobby, who was walking slowly, perhaps thinking.

_Contemplating his homicidal thoughts_, Miss Parker thought, before she admonished herself. What a horrible thing to think about another person, especially another person she had not yet met! _He's going to kill his best friend_, a voice hissed inside her mind, causing her heart to jolt, and her chest to hurt harder, though she hadn't realised that it had been hurting before. _Eight years from now_, the voice continued, _he's going to kill his best friend. But he won't be caught, and he won't stop._

Miss Parker pushed the mean voice away, and concentrated on her steps and her hand in her mother's hand.

They were so close now that she could hear Bobby's school shoes as they scuffed on the pavement as he walked.

But then he turned around and she suddenly found his gazing at her, and she wanted to step back, or turn around and run, run as far away as she could from this boy. Something about the blueness of his eyes, the same blue as her own eyes, disgusted and angered her.

Beside her, Catherine smiled. "Hello, Bobby," she said, and Miss Parker expected Bobby to ask her how she had known his name, but he didn't.

* * *

_It's just a dream_, a voice whispered in her mind, but it was no longer mean, but gentle, and the gentleness confused Miss Parker. The voice seemed so familiar to her, yet she could not place it.

She wanted to ask why Raines would kill her mother, what possible reason he could have to kill her mother, though she already seemed to know the answer without ever remembering having asked, or being answered.

She wanted to tell the voice that it was a liar, but her mother had just invited Bobby to accompany them to the café she'd seen as they been passing through the main street in town for a soda and an ice-cream, and Bobby smiled, and she found herself staring at him.

_My goodness_, the voice whispered, _he's beautiful when he smiles!_ And suddenly, just as if the thought that not been a stranger's, but her own, she found herself breathless, because Bobby really did have a beautiful smile.

Sitting in the back of the chair with Bobby sitting beside her, separated only by a single seat and his schoolbag, she felt immeasurably uncomfortable, and then Bobby glanced away from the window, where houses flitted by, and glanced at her. "What is your name?" he asked.

Her chest constricted in panic and she thought she wouldn't be able to breathe enough to be able to answer. But then she heard herself say, "Melody," and she could not believe that she'd just told him her first name. She never told anyone her first name! She was always Miss Parker! Always!

"Hello, Melody," Bobby said.

Miss Parker turned away from him and stared ahead of her stiffly. She wanted to yell at him, "Never say my name, you maniac!" but then she'd ruin it all, and that would make her mother sad, so she said nothing.

She heard Bobby say, "My name is Bobby," but did not respond.

* * *

Miss Parker glared at her vanilla and chocolate ice-cream sundae with chocolate sauce and chopped peanuts. She did not want to sit next to Bobby, but her mother had wanted her to, so she'd had no choice but to do just that.

She prodded her ice-cream angrily with her spoon and forced herself to scoop some of the ice-cream onto her spoon and eat it, though she didn't want to eat it. She was no longer hungry!

The ice-cream was cold and hurt her head and her throat.

She glanced at Bobby, who'd almost finished his own ice-cream, and didn't seem to have minded the coldness of it at all. She made a face.

Catherine frowned at her from across the table.

She dropped the face, and scooped some more ice-cream into her mouth and stared at the beads Bobby wore on his right wrist. "Isn't that a bit girly?" she asked, through a mouthful of ice-cream.

Catherine stared at her.

"They were a gift," Bobby told her.

She rolled her eyes. "From your girlfriend?" she demanded, and frowned at the tone of her voice.

"From a girl," Bobby replied.

Miss Parker made a face. "You don't have a girlfriend?" she asked, eyes wide, expression clearly indicating that he was, in her opinion, too pathetic to have a girlfriend.

"I don't think I'm quite old enough yet for a romantic relationship," Bobby told her amusedly. "In a few years, perhaps?"

Miss Parker narrowed her eyes at him. "I have a boyfriend!" she told him, self-satisfied. "His name is Jarod!"

Across the table, Catherine shook her head.

Miss Parker grinned menacingly.

"Oh," Bobby said.

* * *

Miss Parker glanced at Bobby over her milkshake, which she had convinced her mother to get her instead of a soda and she was currently sipping through a straw, and eyeing Bobby's untouched soda. If he didn't drink it, she thought, maybe she'd throw it on him later, and suppressed a smile at the thought.

A little while later, Bobby informed Catherine that he was feeling sick and needed to go to the bathroom, and Miss Parker was left alone at the table, morose. _What is that about?_ she thought sarcastically, but not really interested in the answer.

She sat at the table alone for a short while longer, before, uncomfortable with being left alone in a strange town, she stood up to find her mother and ask her to come back to the table.

She was standing in front of the door to the bathroom, about to go inside, when she heard her mother's voice. "I have to ask you something, Bobby," Catherine said, and Miss Parker watched Bobby turn away from the mirror, looking pale.

"Do you know who I am, Bobby?" Catherine asked.

Bobby frowned, confused at first, but then gave a short nod.

"Who am I, Bobby?" Catherine asked.

Bobby blinked, frowning still. "You're… my mother…?" he said.

Miss Parker stared, her eyes going wide. Bobby knew that Catherine was his mother! Did that mean that he also knew that she was his sister? _Of course it does!_ she scolded herself. But how did he know?

From inside the bathroom, she watched her mother smile, and reach out a hand, and she grew suddenly angry. Her mother hadn't hugged her all day, and now she was going to hug some stranger, who she didn't even know, and was a lunatic! _I should have warned her!_ she thought suddenly, angry at herself.

But her mother didn't hug Bobby, instead she grabbed a handful of his stupid curly hair – only girls had curly hair, in Miss Parker's opinion – and smashed his head into the edge of the sink, and let go of his hair and let him drop to the floor.

Miss Parker stepped sharply back from the door in shock, and watched, through the crack in the door, as her mother carefully smoothed her skirt and stepped around Bobby – heels clacking – who was now lying on the floor, eyes too wide, and staring at the door as a puddle of blood grew on the floor beside his head.

Miss Parker turned and ran back to the table, too shocked to do anything else, so that she was seated right back at the table where Catherine and Bobby had left her earlier, sipping Bobby's untouched soda, when Catherine returned to the table, expression pale and slightly pinched, and grinned up at her mother.

But Catherine cut her off before she could apologise for drinking Bobby's soda. "I-I don't know what's wrong with him!" she stammered, fighting to keep her voice low, and in control. "He wanted to hurt me! He-he attacked me!" She swayed unsteadily, and said in a shaking voice. "We have to go now, baby!"

Except Miss Parker knew that Bobby hadn't attacked her mother. He hadn't even tried to hurt her. Her heart beat too fast, making her chest hurt, as she forced her fingers on her right hand to uncurl from the glass of soda, and her legs to remain steady enough to allow her to stand. _It's just a dream_, she told herself, as she walked across the café with her mother, toward the exit, and willed herself to pick up her feet and keep walking.

* * *

_2003_

And of course it was just a dream, because at that moment, Miss Parker awoke in her bed, heart beating too fast, and sat up in the dark.

_It was just a dream,_ she reassured herself. _A stupid, stupid dream!_

Still shaking from the dream, she slipped her legs off the mattress and stood unsteadily. Her mother would never hurt anyone, let alone her own son, she reassured herself, though even that was ridiculous, because she _knew_ that Catherine would have never hurt anyone. Confused that she'd had such a horrible dream, she stumbled around in the dark until she found the light switch, and left the room to get herself a glass of water.

She turned the kitchen tap off, and drank her water and shook her head, replacing the glass in the kitchen sink.

* * *

At work, Broots reported that they had a lead on Jarod's whereabouts, and Broots, and she and Sydney headed out of the building, toward the Sweeper and waiting car.

_A new Sweeper_, Miss Parker thought, annoyed, and ready to yell at someone who got too close – whether or not it was their fault, or they even knew what she was yelling at them for – for not having been told of the change.

In the parking lot, the Sweeper stood waiting beside the car for Miss Parker and her team to arrive.

Miss Parker frowned and slowed her pace, at which Sydney glanced at her with a frown, but Broots didn't notice and kept walking ahead at normal pace, though Miss Parker didn't yell at him. She was far more annoyed at her brother for being late and holding them up when they had a lead on Jarod.

When they reached the car and Lyle still hadn't arrived, she made a face, ignoring the Sweeper who held the passenger's side front door open for her, and looked at Sydney. "What is he doing?" she growled.

Sydney frowned. "The Sweeper?" he questioned.

Miss Parker shot him an incredulous look.

Sydney's frown deepened with confusion. "What is who doing, Miss Parker?" he asked.

Miss Parker laughed. "Lyle!" she snarled, glancing around the parking lot and turning on the spot once to make sure he wasn't trying to sneak up on her and suddenly announce his presence – right behind her, with an annoying 'Sis,' which she always hated – and have her step onto Sydney.

Sydney shook his head, worry evident in his expression. "I'm sorry, I don't know anyone by that name," he told her. "Is he a Sweeper?" he prompted, glancing at the Sweeper still holding the door open for her.

Miss Parker laughed, amused, but seeing Sydney's expression remain unchanged, she dropped the laugh, and blinked several times.

Sydney frowned at her.

She turned and stalked away from him, and over to the Sweeper, then placed her hand on the car door and slammed it shut forcefully.

"When I'm in a vehicle, I'm the only one who's behind the wheel!" she snarled. "If that doesn't sit with you, you can sit out!" Then she snatched the car keys out of the Sweeper's slacks pocket and stormed around the front of the car, toward the driver's side.

If anyone would know what was going on, it would be Jarod! He was, after all, a genius.


	2. Chapter 2

The Jarod she was looking at could not possibly be the Jarod she had known only a day ago. There was something in the way he looked at her, looked at them all, that she didn't like. But, more than that, there was something in her, or, more correctly, a _lack_ of something in her, that she didn't like.

This man, she felt no connection with this man. And this man felt no connection with her. There was no carefully concealed care for her in his eyes, there was no care at all, not for her, not for any of them. Not for Sydney, not for Broots.

"Down on the ground!" an angry voice barked from behind her, and she spun – uncertainly – to see that it was Kyle, and Sydney, and that Kyle had a gun, and the earlier uncertainty that she'd felt at turning her back on this strange, unfamiliar, new Jarod, evaporated then, and she stared at the gun in Kyle's hand, pressed against Sydney's head.

But when she turned again, away from the sight of Kyle – _He's dead_, she told herself silently, _Lyle shot him and he died, this is all nothing more than a bad dream, nothing more than a nightmare_ – there was Jarod – this new, hostile, uncaring Jarod – with a gun in his hand, pointed at her. "I don't think so, Miss Parker!" he growled. "I think you heard my brother."

Miss Parker frowned, and glanced about her quickly, making as little movement as possible, only moving her eyes. "Jarod, this is ridiculous," she told him in a low voice. "Kyle is dead. I don't know what this is, or who that is, but I know that isn't Kyle."

Jarod stared at her for a moment, in which she realised that the man standing behind her _was_ Kyle, and that this man – this man standing before her – was Jarod, but that he was not her Jarod, was not the Jarod of her childhood, the Jarod whose bad dreams she'd soothed without ever laying a finger on him, or uttering a word to his ear – that that childhood was just a distant, floundering, dying memory, and that those bad dreams had never been soothed.

And this Jarod laughed in her face.

The sound made her flinch. But she did what he shouted at her next, angry, but feigning amusement, and watched as she surrendered her two guns, and then got down on the ground.

* * *

Bound, she had nonetheless managed to gain a sitting position, when she heard heavy footfalls at her rear, and twisted as best she could to see the owner of those footfalls, and would have stared, open-mouthed, if her mouth hadn't been taped over with grey duct tape, so instead she watched as others approached behind Ethan – her Ethan – each of them dressed neatly in a suit, and saw, behind them still, the impeccably shiny black surveillance van now wending its way over, through the narrow lanes and spaces of the parking lot, and realised that Ethan had come out of that van – that Ethan worked for the Center!

When Ethan had untaped her mouth, and had released her from her bindings, during which time she'd done nothing more than stare, he moved on to do the same for Sydney, and then Broots, and a man she supposed a Sweeper was talking to her, asking about Jarod, and she felt herself talking, voice somehow fainter than usual, but for all that, she merely reported a single word, "Gone," and inwardly frowned at Broots's address of Ethan as Clausen.

Ethan was what? A Sweeper? A tech? She did not know. All she knew was that she did not like Ethan being here, with these people – with her!

* * *

Ethan, it turned out, as she was being attended by a long, dark-haired nurse with a soft, round face and large brown eyes, was a tech.

The nurse smiled at her when she'd finished her examination, and gathered the hair that had obscured half of her face, and tucked it behind an ear, and Miss Parker stared at the scarring there, and thought suddenly, that her face was not the only part of her scarred.

Behind the nurse, she watched Ethan return to the surveillance van, and the van start to pull away, and then another vehicle approach, smaller than the van, but larger than the car she'd come in, and the nurse disappeared into the SUV.

And then they had pulled into another parking lot, and they'd taken tables, and they were sitting in a roadhouse diner, and a mug of coffee had been placed in front of her, and she was glancing at the menu, safely tucked away inside a standing plastic frame, now clutched in her hands.

Sydney sat across the table from her, the nurse beside her, and the Sweeper who'd earlier been waiting by the car that morning beside Sydney, but Broots, she saw, sat at another table, talking busily with Ethan – whom he referred to, like everyone else, as Clausen.

The menu still in her hands, she watched Sydney for a moment, discussing with the Sweeper what he'd have for dinner, from the menu the nurse had stood and retrieved from the counter with a smile, and placed the menu back on the table in front of her, and watched as the Sweeper nodded at something Sydney had said, but which she hadn't heard, as she'd been listening to the conversation between Ethan and Broots.

When a waitress arrived at their table to take their order, each of them conveyed what they'd have, and the table returned to quiet, and Miss Parker returned to sipping her coffee, knowing that this was no longer a dream – that, somehow, she no longer had a twin brother, that Kyle was alive, and that Ethan worked for the Center.

Miss Parker ate her meal silently, mentally attempting to reach out to Ethan, to reach out and find something familiar, but reaching, touching, nothing. She wanted to stand, wanted to walk to the other table, and ask Ethan, Did he know that he was her half brother, that she was his half sister?

But, of course, she did not do this, and instead listened to the sound of scraping cutlery, and other voices, parts of other conversations, the distorted sounds of a radio station, a hissing television set, and from beside her, the nurse – now – singing along to a song playing over the radio.

The song, Miss Parker realised, was _Blue Moon_, and she looked up from her plate and turned and saw that the nurse had closed her eyes, and that she was smiling as she sung.

"Annie?" Sydney's concerned voice spoke from across the table.

Miss Parker's chest hurt at the sound of that name, but she knew – suddenly – as she gazed upon this woman, that she _was_ Annie, that she was Annie Raines.

Annie's eyes opened and she beamed across the table at Sydney. "Oh, Sydney!" she spoke, a smile in her voice. "You do spoil me so!" She laughed gently and nodded, with only half of a mock-frown, and said, "I shall be alright, Sydney."

From across the table, Sydney nodded and returned to his coffee.

The Sweeper shot Miss Parker a look, which she thought, quite plainly said that the Sweeper found Annie to be quite mad, and the way she talked, and the way she always smiled, all to be quite mad, but Miss Parker merely returned to her own dinner.

* * *

Back in Blue Cove, winding her way through a darkened street, where the street lamps had been smashed and the council had not yet repaired or replaced them, Miss Parker frowned through the windshield, Broots seated beside her in her own car, and listened to Broots's instructions as to the house to pull up in front of.

His own car had been taken in for servicing, and would not be returned for some days still, and they'd returned too late for the buses to be operating, and Annie had suggested, that rather than Broots taking a taxi, that Miss Parker drop him off at his house, she was, after all, going that way to drop Annie off at her own house. As she learned quickly, she did every night, as Annie did not drive.

But when they dropped him off, Broots had them drop him off at the corner of his street, and not in front of his house. "My daughter," he said, whom Miss Parker knew to be sixteen, "doesn't like strangers."

Miss Parker frowned, ready to tell Broots that Debbie and she were not strangers to one another, but the door had already been shut and she watched Broots's retreating figure through the windshield, and wondered how she was possibly going to know where it was Annie lived to be able to drop her off.

Annie smiled and climbed into the front section of the car from the backseat, so that she could sit up the front, and watched Broots turn into a front yard, and then disappear inside the front door of a house.

* * *

Miss Parker and Annie, at Annie's suggestion, had driven to McDonald's for coffees, and had taken seats by the window, and Miss Parker now listened to Annie telling her about Nicholas, Sydney's son, whom he'd met at a conference out of state, and looked around for any sign of Debbie's best friend, who worked at McCafé, or on Drive-Thru, with Debbie, who worked the McDonald's counter, sometimes.

But she saw neither Debbie, nor her best friend, whom was four years older than her and a Goth.

It was the better part of ten minutes later, however, that she saw Debbie – not dressed in a McDonald's uniform, nor a school uniform, but looking awful, as though she'd not washed in some time – getting around with a boy, himself dressed in a school uniform, though his shirt untucked – as though he thought this fashionable, or _cool_ – who had to be at least a year younger than herself.

Too close beside her, Annie was filling in the crossword in the local newspaper, _the Blue Cove Bonanza_, in block letters.

"My father doesn't buy the newspaper," Annie informed Miss Parker, as though they were Debbie's age, and they both still lived at home, but had snuck out, and were being terribly naughty and rebellious, and not looking up from the crossword she was filling in, and then she ran off on a tangent, but which Miss Parker wasn't really listening to, as she was instead keeping a keen eye on Debbie and the boy she was with.

Debbie had taken a table across the restaurant, after ordering at the counter, and talked to the boy whilst she waited for the order to be brought out to their table, not having waited at the counter for the girl who'd been serving her to gather the things together on the plastic tray, and instead taking the boy's arm and tugging him away toward the table they were currently sitting at.

Debbie laughed raucously, and kicked the boy a little too hard under the table, evidently for having made her laugh, and the boy, who'd been laughing too, stopped laughing for a moment, but then began laughing again.

In no time at all after that, Miss Parker watched a boy, the same age as the boy sitting with Debbie at the table, but dressed in McDonald's uniform, but not one of the regulars who took orders at the counter – so perhaps from behind the counter, where the food was cooked, or a cleaner – approach the table with their order, and when he turned back to return to the counter, Miss Parker squinted to read the nametag that announced that his name was Myka, and frowned when Debbie and her friend threw French fries at him, which he had to turn around and pick up, and then stood up to tell Debbie and the boy that throwing food was not allowed in the restaurant, to which Debbie only laughed, and then denied that it had been her, leaning forward and narrowing her eyes unnecessarily to read the boy's nametag and then finished her denial with a sloppy pronunciation of his name as "My-car."

* * *

Debbie did not look at Miss Parker as Annie and she left the restaurant, but called out after Annie, "Whore freak! Stay away from my daddy you ho!" to which the boy with her whistled loudly, and laughed, but Annie ignored and kept walking, and Miss Parker observed, in the steadily approaching glass front and automatic doors, Myka having returned to Debbie's table and asking her to desist from such language or kindly take her leave of the establishment in which he worked until such time as she no longer felt the need for the use of such language in public.

As she backed the car out of the parking space it had previously occupied, Miss Parker saw that Debbie was now standing outside the restaurant, that she must have decided to leave after her telling off, and noted a middle-aged man, who looked to be the restaurant manager, standing with Myka, but glancing disapprovingly across the restaurant to the spot where Debbie stood outside on the pavement.

When she looked across at Annie, she saw that her eyes had gone watery, and she glanced away again, as though she had not looked at all – unsure what to say – and returned her eyes to the road, now realising that Annie _did_ still live with her father – and that was where she would drop her off.


	3. Chapter 3

That night, she didn't dream at all, but rather she had a bad time of sleeping, and kept waking every other hour, save for at 5 A.M. she decided to be done with sleep, angrily, and stood to take a shower, then to drive to McDonald's for a coffee, as her coffee machine was not working, and had been plastered with a Post-it note informing her of a single-worded message reading, _Fix_, in an unfamiliar hand, and when she took up a biro, finally locating one in a drawer of the sideboard, and hastily scrawled something – anything – down, the first thing that came into her mind, _You have an appointment at 5 P.M. to fix_, an unfinished sentence, it proved little, but that the hand was not her own.

Confused, and tired, and angry, she found a parking space close to the entrance of the McDonald's restaurant, and wondered what the coffee would be like at Burger King or KFC, and took at seat with her filtered black coffee from the front counter where she'd also ordered a muffin from McCafé, as the girl who'd served her had said she was able to take McCafé orders from her register to make it more efficient, if she was also taking an order from the main desk, which, because of her coffee purchase, she had.

She let her hands warm around the paper of her coffee cup and stared ahead of her, not at the card with the number 1 supported on a metallic stand like a strange coconut or palm tree which would tell the McCafé attendant which table to take the muffin to, once it had been heated in the microwave, but at nothing, as she remembered the way Annie had quickly pulled her sleeves up over her hands to wipe her eyes dry of any incriminating tears and had turned back, standing on the concrete step in front of the door, to wave in an agreeable gesture of departure, and had then turned back to the front door, hunching a little as she did, and opened the door with a key that must have been her own, and disappeared inside the house.

Miss Parker wondered Raines had been home then, recalling that she hadn't seen his car in the drive, or in the front yard, and supposed that maybe it had just been Annie, waiting at home for her family to return, her father and brother, Sam, or even her mother, whom Miss Parker now could not be certain was dead, but had to assume was alive, until she found out otherwise, as she had done with Kyle and Annie, and wondered of the dream she'd earlier had, the dream in which her mother had killed her brother, and wondered if that dream had not been a dream at all – somehow – but that that dream had been real, and, if so, if all of the things that were different now, were just because of that one thing, that one life, and thought unfair that was, how unfair it was for her brother to have touched so many people's lives in such an unfavourable way, and yet, for some strange, inexplicable reason, for her to, despite her hatred of him, still miss him.

She realised now that it was true, that she missed her brother, that she missed the things that had been familiar now, the shared history, even the complications, not all of them, but some of them surely, that had drawn her closer to someone, like the one that had drawn her closer to Debbie, but now seemed erased – seemed never to have happened – or that had indelibly endeared her to Jarod, all those years ago as children, when she'd kissed him and told him her first name, or when she'd shared her secret thoughts and feelings with him, the sorts of thoughts and feelings she never could have shared with a grown-up, the sorts of thoughts and feelings only another child could have understood.

She wondered, Was this a strange dream she was caught in, unable to leave? Or was this now her life, was this now real? And all of that, all of everything that had happened before, was that no longer real, was that merely a passing dream, washed away in the daylight? And would it soon be washed clean of her mind? Would it soon cease even to exist in her mind?

The sound of a ceramic chink, the sound of the porcelain plate upon which her muffin had been placed, broke her from her thoughts, and she returned to the restaurant, eyes focussing hurriedly, to watch a hand take the order number on its funny little stalk, and then the whole person turn and walk away, back to the McCafé counter, back to real life, back to work.

She sighed, and reached for the plate upon which her muffin sat, and frowned suddenly, and turned to glance at the teenage boy standing beside her table, whom, at first she'd thought the boy she'd seen Debbie with yesterday, but then realised was not the boy with Debbie, but the boy who'd come out to their table to bring their order, and struggled to recall the name she'd read on his nametag.

"Hello," the boy said, and she realised that he was dressed, this time, in school uniform, though it was only 5:30 in the morning, and not yet light.

Miss Parker nodded. She had no idea why this boy had approached her, or what he wanted, so she just nodded, at a loss for anything else to do.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" the boy asked, pointing to the chair across from her at the table, and she was suddenly struck with the notion that the boy liked her, and that she should refuse him so as not to allow any hope to take root in his mind of any sort of friendship between the two beyond his job at McDonald's and her frequenting the chain restaurant.

"I don't think that would be a very good idea," Miss Parker replied evenly, and waited for the boy to turn and leave, suddenly hungry, but unable to eat her muffin.

"I suppose so," the boy said, still watching her face, as though he thought she might change her mind. "I'm sorry," he added, realising that she was not going to change her mind, and he turned and walked away, to find another table, across the restaurant, to which Miss Parker did not take much notice, in case he catch her watching him and think hopefully of it.

* * *

She'd finished both her coffee and muffin, and the bacon and egg McMuffin and hash brown she'd ordered for breakfast at 6:15, after having finished perusing yesterday's paper and reading through the answers Annie had given for the crossword, and stood to leave, thinking that if she stayed she'd likely order herself another coffee, and, gathering her handbag, glanced up from the watch at her wrist and noticed the boy whose name she still could not remember, writing something down in an exercise book, and wondered, as irrational as it sounded, if he was writing about her, and felt suddenly wary and angry.

To give her an excuse, she walked to the counter and ordered another filtered coffee, then stood waiting for the coffee to arrive, and turned away from the counter and walked toward the boy's table, coffee in hand, in mind of asking him just what his game was.

He did not look up from the exercise book he was writing in with his left hand when she approached, but frowned and stumbled over the pronunciation of a word he was evidently trying to spell and had decided would be easier if he said it out loud, or perhaps he spoke everything he wrote out loud.

Miss Parker glanced at what he'd written – the beginning of a Letter to the Editor for a school project – and noticed how he'd spelt _any_ with an _e_ instead of an _a_, all down the page, and waited until he'd come to the end of his sentence before announcing her presence and speaking. "If you've your heart set on us taking breakfast together," she heard herself say, which was not what she'd wanted to say at all, but she could no longer correct, and so went on, "there's one thing you can do for me."

The boy looked up at her quickly, momentarily startled, and then relaxed upon seeing who it was, and frowned.

Miss Parker wasn't about to repeat what she'd just said, so she asked instead, "Do you remember when I came in last night?"

The boy frowned. "I remember when you went out," he told her slowly, which was how he said everything.

"Well, just before I left, do you remember the girl and the boy who were very rude to my friend as we were passing their table?" she asked.

"Yes," the boy said.

"I want you to keep an eye out for the girl, if you can do that," Miss Parker told him. "I'm guessing that you know her, that she goes to the same school that you do. Don't approach her, just keep an eye out for her. Can you do that?"

The boy nodded. "Yes."

Miss Parker smiled, hoping it was a convincing smile. "Then, as of tomorrow," she told the boy, business-like, but pleased, "we shall have breakfast together every weekday morning." It was a rare thing for her to go out for breakfast, but she would just have to go out more often, Miss Parker decided, adjusting the strap of her handbag on her shoulder. "I'll see you tomorrow, then. Half past five, sharp." She nodded, and turned to leave.

"My name is Myka," the boy said, voice rising a fraction, almost rising from his seat, but relaxing when she turned back to the table. "What's yours?"

"Miss Parker," she responded.

Myka smiled. "Thank you, Miss Parker," he said. "I will look forward to that."

Miss Parker turned and walked out.


	4. Chapter 4

As she walked into the reception area that morning, the usual receptionist, Midori, was not sitting behind the desk, and Miss Parker found herself starting to become annoyed. She'd actually quite liked Midori, though she'd never said so, though, sometimes, she'd kept an eye on the girl, just to be sure, which one never could be when Lyle was involved, given his penchant for young Asian women, though the fact that Midori was Lucy's younger cousin seemed to have given the girl some immunity, Miss Parker reflected.

She doubted, however, that she would be seeing either Midori, or Lucy, anytime soon, and approached the reception desk to check in for work with Amoretta, whom, Miss Parker found herself thinking, she might have suggested her brother ask out, if he hadn't been – presumably – dead. She still hadn't gotten to the bottom of that mystery, but she was none to keen to do something that might further aggravate her circumstances, whatever her circumstances were.

Her mind still on her twin brother and her exploits to continue the Parker family line, without actually having to have any children of her own, she almost walked into Raines when he stopped in front of her in the middle of the corridor.

"I, um, actually, it's a good thing that we ran into each other just now," Raines told her, "because I'd been meaning to have a word."

Miss Parker narrowed her eyes, frowning at the lack of an oxygen tank, and at his easy speech.

"Miss Parker?"

"What?" Miss Parker snapped, noting the lack of any sort of pin upon his suit jacket.

"Might we then have a word?"

Miss Parker rolled her eyes and smiled sweetly. "What sort of a word?" she growled, not at all sweetly.

"A day or so ago, Annie came home very upset. I just wondered if you knew anything about that."

"Not that I recall," Miss Parker replied dismissively.

Raines nodded. "Well, alright, I'm sorry to have held you up," he told her, and walked off past her.

"Excuse me," Miss Parker called after him in a raised voice, turning on the spot to face him as she did, "but would you care to remind me again what it is exactly that you do?"

"I'm a doctor," Raines replied.

Miss Parker narrowed her eyes. "Right," she said. "And that's all?" she added as an afterthought.

"Correct. That's all." Raines frowned. "I'd think you'd know what it is I do here, Miss Parker. Your parents have invited Annie and I to a great deal of dinner parties and garden parties and other sorts of parties often enough."

_Parents?_ Miss Parker thought, her heart skipping. Dare she risk the hope, she pondered? Dare she risk the hope that her mother was _alive_! But, what of Ethan? If her mother had lived, she was sure Ethan would have stayed with her, and would have never been placed with the Clausens!

Seeing that Raines was still watching her, she tossed her head. "You never know!" she told him, and turned about and walked away.

* * *

At about lunchtime, fairly sick of her paperwork, Miss Parker decided to take a walk to Raines' office to further discuss some matters that had been particularly bothering her, only that when she reached said office, it was not Raines' name that was upon the door, and, therefore, it followed that the office would neither be Raines', but was instead, presumably, a man named Carter's.

As she turned and walked away, resigning that she would just have to enquire discreetly with Amoretta as to the whereabouts of Raines' office, she strained to recall why the name sounded so familiar, and remembered, suddenly, that Carter had been transferred from the Blue Cove branch following Jacob's death/accident, when Raines' had then taken over from Jacob as Med Space Director, though, obviously, events had conspired against Raines this time, and he'd not gotten the job.

_Though, a doctor_, she thought. _A doctor, and not a researcher, or a psychiatrist._ She frowned, and made her way toward the elevators and up to ground floor.

* * *

Raines' office was somewhere on SL-6, enough out of the way that it was a suitable nuisance to Miss Parker to find the room in the first place, though, as she drew nearer, she heard an indistinct female voice, and then Raines' voice, coming from within the office, and paused, frowning, in an attempt to hear what was being said.

"Oh, Annie, really!"

"I said I didn't want to daddy," Annie's agitated voice relayed.

"As much as I try, I just cannot understand you sometimes, Annie," Raines told his daughter.

"Daddy! Stop it! You're making me very uncomfortable! I said I didn't want to – NOW CAN WE PLEASE DROP IT!"

"Alright! Alright! It's already dropped!"

Annie sniffed. "Thank you, daddy."

"That's alright. You-you don't have to thank me. You're a responsible adult. Certainly, you're old enough now to be making reasonable decisions for yourself, and, you see, you are."

"Daddy, you said you'd drop it!" Annie growled.

"Alright. Well, then… If you… need me, I'll be in the dining hall, you know where to find me."

"No, daddy!" Annie growled again. "I want you to stay! You always run away from me! I WANT YOU TO STAY!"

"Annie, take your hands away from your ears and stop screaming!" Raines told her sharply, which only caused Annie to let out a sharp howl which had Miss Parker reaching up to cover her own ears.

"You shouted at me, daddy! You never shout at me! I don't like shouting!" Annie complained, in a little girl's voice. "You know I don't like shouting. I shouldn't have to repeat myself a thousand times for it to sink in. DON'T YOU EVER SHOUT AT ME AGAIN!"

"No, Annie, I won't," Raines assured her. "I won't shout at you again. I promise."

"I wants you to stay with me," Annie growled in a low voice. "I don't want you to go out. You always go out! You always run away! I can't eat when you run away. I worry that something bad will happen to you, or you won't come back-"

"Why wouldn't I come back?" Raines asked.

"I'm talking, DADDY!" Annie shouted. "You don't interrupt when I'm talking!" She put on a mean voice. "Why wouldn't you come back! WHY WOULDN'T YOU COME BACK! I frighten you, daddy. I can see it in your face. You think there's something wrong with me. That I'm wrong!" She laughed. "YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME TOO!" she hollered, followed by another piercing scream.

"I'm not going to leave you, Annie. I'm just going to lunch."

Miss Parker stepped backward at the sound of more of the same piercing shrieking, physically repelled.

"Annie, please stop screaming! If someone hears you screaming like that and reports you, you're going to have yourself taken away, and there'll be nothing I, or anyone else, will be able to do to stop it."

"You're mean!" Annie shouted, crying. "I hate you! You're trying to scare me!"

"Annie, for goodness sakes, I am doing nothing of the sort. I am merely being realistic. Won't you listen to yourself for once?"

Annie laughed. "It's what you want, isn't it, daddy? You want me taken away! Then you can be free!" She shrieked again, and Miss Parker winced at the sound of smashing. "You're not going to leave me, daddy! If I go, then you go too!"

Drawing up her courage, Miss Parker walked swiftly toward the door and gave three precise knocks.

"I'll be right with you!" Raines told her, and, a moment later, the door was opened ajar and Annie's beaming red face peered out at her.

"Hello!" Annie said, and giggled.

"Miss Parker," Raines acknowledged, walking up behind his daughter, and Annie frowned for a moment, suddenly cross, before she hitched back the radiant smile. "I think Miss Parker would like to talk in private," Raines told his daughter. "I'm afraid that means I'm going to have to go out for a moment."

After he'd said this, he barely made it out the door before it was slammed closed after him. He frowned heavily, and glanced at Miss Parker.

"Boyfriend issues?" Miss Parker enquired.

"Annie doesn't have a boyfriend," Raines told her, slightly annoyed, and rested his hand on her upper arm, indicating that they should put some distance between themselves and the door, in case Annie had her ear pressed to the door, listening hard.

"You were there when I was born," Miss Parker said, glancing behind her as she did. "I mean, you were the attending doctor."

"Yes. And?" Raines asked, irritated.

Miss Parker narrowed her eyes in an icy glare, which she turned on him. "I know I had a twin," she snapped. "A brother." Her voice now a growl. "What happened to him?"

Raines sighed. "He was given up for adoption, though he passed through so many families, we were not able to locate his whereabouts." He shook his head. "Look, I've discussed all this with Mrs. Parker. Wouldn't it be more convenient for you to just discuss this matter with her?"

Miss Parker scowled. "And what about Ethan?"

"Oh dear. Ethan. Yes, Ethan. Ethan was also given up for adoption, though in his case, we were able to track him down. You're not close friends, but what can you do? The way it goes is the way it is. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a demented daughter to deal with!"

Miss Parker choked. "Nice of you to label your own child 'demented'!" she called after him.

"Nice of you to shout it for the whole world to hear!" Raines called back to her, aggravated.

She scrunched up her face in a glare and turned on her heel.

* * *

On her way to her car, that evening, Miss Parker ran into Raines and Annie again. This time, Annie was protesting about not being able to keep her umbrella up in the car as it was cloudy outside, and she wanted to have her umbrella ready for when she got home and got out of the car, in case it started to rain.

Miss Parker made a face, and decided that tomorrow she would go to see her daddy in his office, and maybe she'd bump into her mother.

"Annie, stop it! That's quite enough for one d-" Raines was saying to his daughter, before he was cut short by her lunging on him and biting him in the shoulder with an animalistic growl.

"Those two really scare me sometimes," a familiar nervous voice spoke from beside her, and she glanced around to see Broots standing beside her. "By the way," Broots said, "thanks for the ride the other day."

Miss Parker shrugged. "That's okay," she replied. "I'm not so sure I'd want to be alone in an enclosed space with Annie for too long, in any case."

Beside her, Broots shivered. "Yeah," he agreed. "Well, goodnight, Miss Parker."

"Goodnight... ah, Broots," Miss Parker responded, and watched Broots hurry away, toward his car, and then turned her attention back to Raines, who was attempting to pull his daughter off his shoulder.

Miss Parker marched over, pulling out her gun, and pressed the weapon hard enough against the back of Annie's head for her to feel it. "Let go!" she growled. "Now!"

Annie giggled and stepped back from her father, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

"For goodness sake," Raines told her, "put that thing away this instant!"

Miss Parker surveyed the damage to his shoulder, unaffected, and nodded toward his shoulder. "You might want to get that looked at," she told him, and turned efficiently and stalked away, to the sounds of Annie's renewed giggles, the blood from her hand now smeared across her cheek.

* * *

Miss Parker returned to her car and was surprised to find Brown, Blue Cove's single Tower doctor and the Parker family doctor, waiting for her beside her car, arms folded tightly across his chest, off-white scarf bright at his throat.

"As your doctor," he told her, in a waspish voice, eyes glinting, "I'd advice you to maintain suitable distance from the affected masses… if you value your life," he added, seemingly idly.

Miss Parker stared at him for a second, dumb struck. As much as she'd disliked Brown – certainly, she'd been no fan – she'd never before heard him speak so coldly.

And, more strange than even this, gone was the Welsh accent she knew, not only he to have had, but also his father, who'd been the Parker family doctor before him.

In the gloom and the approaching darkness, Brown's eyes glinted. "This corporation, _Miss Parker_, values your life very highly, and if you were to treat that life with flippancy or disdain, then, shall we just say, measures would be taken… to prevent this." With that his final word, he slinked passed her, back toward the large, looming white building behind her.

She did not like at all, the way he'd slinked off, nor the special delicacy he'd reserved for the mention of her name, or the way he lengthened his words with an eerie half-hiss, half-hesitation to his voice.

* * *

"You've got to understand," Raines told her, over the telephone that night – her feeling slightly proud that she'd recalled the number – "that Annie has had her fair share of traumas in life, and, sometimes, when a person has too many traumas, it all just starts to stack up, and suddenly everything is just too much, it's all just too much. Then there is the person who cannot handle trauma at all. So you see, after what Annie's been through, I hardly expect her to be perfect." He sighed. "And then with Edna leaving us the way she did. It can be difficult some times."

"He's dead," Miss Parker told him, suddenly disinterested in her salad, the salad she'd made herself and had, not moments before, been so very proud of.

"I'm sorry? Pardon me for asking, but I'm not sure I follow you entirely. Who is it that is dead- who is dead, exactly, Miss Parker?" Raines asked.

"My brother. My twin. He's dead."

Miss Parker heard him smile, confident in his disbelief.

"Of course you think that now," Raines replied. "You feel abandoned by your parents, who're going through a divorce, and not much better by your brother, Ethan. These are difficult times for you. You're confused. It makes no sense, _now_, that your parents should divorce. After so long! And Ethan! What is it with Ethan, that makes him dislike you quite so much? Was it something you said, or perhaps did? Or it is just him? Is it Ethan? All very confusing, Miss Parker, and I'd like to stay and chat with you – I really would – but Annie will be in from her bedroom any moment, and she'll start on about who am I talking to on the phone, and all of the rest, and I'll never hear the end of it to be able to get an ounce of sleep this month, at least. So I'm going to have to say goodnight, Miss Parker."

Miss Parker frowned, and replaced the piece of lettuce she'd been attempting to convince herself to eat back in her bowl. "Why?" she asked, in low tones.

"Why what, Miss Parker?" Raines asked, slightly confused.

"Why would you like to talk to me longer?"

"Because I like to be able to talk to someone occasionally. And you're my goddaughter." He sighed. "Really, Miss Parker. We're going to have to make this goodnight, _bon voyage_…"

"Goodnight," Miss Parker told him, "_bon __nuit_," and heard the dial tone.

* * *

In this new world, Annie was a savage, and her only brother – half brother – hated her, and Jarod, he probably hated her too, and just as much, if not more.

And her parents were divorcing.

Which meant that they were ignoring her.

Who presumedly was against their divorce.

And Brown was a total ass – a company man, through and through – and creepy as Hell, to boot.

* * *

Another night without dreams, and she was glad, when she woke in the early morning, and remembered that she had a breakfast date who, at least, didn't hate her completely, and wasn't, as far as she knew, going to bite into her and come away with half of her arm, or leg, or any other part of her body.

Hesitantly taking a seat at the table across from Myka, who'd arrived earlier than her and was once more working upon his homework, she glanced across the table at what he was working on – English class homework – and found, to her surprise, that Nicholas was his English teacher, credited in Myka's handwriting as Mr. Stamatis. "Good morning," she greeted.

"Good morning, Miss Parker," Myka replied, without looking up from his work.

"Homework again!" she sighed. "No time to do that at home, or don't you get home much, in between friends, after school activities and the part-time job?"

"My mom's new boyfriend. Doesn't like me so much. Well, tough, I don't like him either."

Miss Parker nodded, watching his expression closely as she asked her next question. "He isn't rough with you or your mom, is he?"

"No," Myka replied. "We just don't get along. You'd think it'd be me. Who hates the whole world, you know. A young person. But he's worse than me. Only thing in it he doesn't hate, he says, is my mother. He wouldn't hurt her. It's not that. We just don't get along, and every time we even try to talk, we always end up arguing at the end. Which sucks."

Miss Parker grimaced.

Myka glanced up at her and smiled. "It's good when you smile. It makes me want to smile too."

Miss Parker nodded, but inwardly she was hesitant, a bit freaked out. What was with this kid, anyway? What was it that he saw in her? They were never going to 'get together,' so what was it that he was looking for? A girlfriend, despite the impossibility of that? A mother figure? A friend? Or was he merely doing it on a dare, or to look cool? Or was it something else, something larger? Had she done something to him, in the past, directly or indirectly, to make him feel jilted, cheated, underappreciated, hurt? She didn't understand.

"I think, sometimes, it's not so easy when you're older," Myka told her. "All you see is the end. That's all that's left." He smiled at her again.

Miss Parker smiled back at him and looked away, toward the counter, where she'd ordered her breakfast.

"We always find each other," Myka said quietly, pleased of this fact, and Miss Parker had the eerie feeling that this comment was not meant to be overheard, and shivered slightly.

* * *

_My apologies for my bad French =(_


End file.
